Call of the Quarter

  It was a beautiful spring day, a pleasant change from the storm that had passed through the evening before.  Central Dispatch had received a call for a tree blocking Rt. 130.  Moments after receiving notification of this, Central received a call describing a car into a tree.  NREMT-P Watts and EMT-E Wilcox arrived on scene to find a 57 year old male complaining of intense abdominal pain.  EMT-E Wilcox took control of C-Spine while NREMT-P Watts did a quick evaluation.  The vehicle had an intrusion of the engine compartment.  The crew noticed the windshield cracked, and deformity to the steering wheel.  Due to the mechanism of injury, as well as the chief complaint, NREMT-P Watts elected to request the assistance of Life Guard 10.  The patient was put on 15 liters of oxygen.  EMT-B Havens, EMT-B Watts, and EMT-B Funkhouser quickly retrieved the necessary equipment, and removed the driver’s side door.  Once the door was removed, the patient was extricated onto a long spine board.  At this point, the patient was complaining of excruciating pain to the left lower abdominal quadrant, as well as bilateral knee pain.  Abrasions were noted on the abdomen, however the chest was non-tender with equal bilateral chest sounds.  The patient did have good PMS in all extremities.  After transporting the patient to the landing zone, he was turned over to the Life Guard flight crew.  Normally, when there is a MVC call, our squad is overrun with members who want to be of assistance.  Due to some technical problems, several of our members did not receive their tones.  The 5 members who did respond made excellent use of the resources available.  As always, the Glasgow Volunteer Fire Department proved to be one of our most valuable assets in assisting us with extricating our patient.  Even with the entrapment, and the necessity of “packaging” the patient, excellent team work allowed an on scene time of only 14 minutes, allowing the crew members to still catch breakfast.